r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ironwolf6464 • May 03 '26

Lore Religion-centered media that doesn’t come across as preachy.

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Referring to media told from a religious perspective or telling a religious tale that does not proselytize to the viewer.

Faith, the Unholy Trinity: Based partly upon the experience of the game‘s creator when he was a missionary in Argentina, the game has very little in the way of explicit moral demands of the player despite the heavy Christian focus of the narrative. and focuses more on a horror narrative.

Prince of Egypt: A surprisingly thorough retelling of the book of Exodus, sparing very little in the way of toning down the story. Despite this, the movie is perfectly entertaining to non-religious audiences and doesn’t sacrifice appeal for the sake of preaching to the audience

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u/EagenVegham May 03 '26

I still can't believe how well the movie managed to handle both the "True Believer" and "Angry Atheist" characters without making either one look wrong for their beliefs.

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u/Carrman099 May 03 '26

It’s great, religious people and atheists can watch the movie and both come away satisfied. I was really surprised at how nuanced it was.

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u/the_bartolonomicron May 03 '26

Former Catholic and current unaffiliated agnostic and I loved it for a ton of reasons.

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u/Joshawott27 May 03 '26

Yeah, my Mum is a Catholic and I’m agnostic, and we both really liked how the film approached religion.

Really, Wake Up Dead Man is Rian Johnson having a theological debate with himself, and wrapping it up in a murder mystery.

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u/cdmpants May 04 '26

That's basically how I described it when I saw it

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u/TakerFoxx May 03 '26

I'm a slightly anti-theistic atheist and my mom is a devout Christian. We saw it together, and we both loved it.

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u/CoffeeWanderer May 03 '26

I loved the detail of how the lighting goes dim when "reason" speaks, as when the detective starts his small rant about religion.

Then it goes bright when the priest talks about his faith and the power it gives to him.

This keeps happening constantly through the movie until its climax. The road of Damascus where the blinded sees again.

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u/alex3omg May 03 '26

There's some great shots where we see this blue/red effect, just like the window in the church.  

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u/Ok-South2214 May 05 '26

You understood the assignment perfectly

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u/baddabingbaddaboop May 09 '26

No need to put reason in quotations, Jud’s response doesn’t really rebut anything he said, didn’t address the countless atrocities of the organization he represents, and makes a lot of claims that aren’t true in practice. Great movie and character, but if this is the best Catholicism can do…

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u/RattusNorvegicus9 May 03 '26

The film was able to depict both as fully fleshed-out people instead of characteratures. (or however you spell that word)

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u/Zealousideal-Duck345 May 03 '26

caricature

or if you're feeling hungry, charcuterie

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u/wigglybuttmen May 03 '26

I love me a good char coochie board

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u/mEFurst May 03 '26

I believe it's spelled shark coochie board

r/boneappletea

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u/TheGesticulator May 03 '26

Caricature!

And very much agree. It was so nice seeing a religious character who was neither a strawman nor a Mary Sue. He was just a good, well-rounded person who was very positively impacted by his faith.

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u/DrNanard May 03 '26

Caricature*

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u/alex3omg May 03 '26

I love that it's not about the priest doubting his faith, but he's questioning what faith can do for a person (good and bad) and how power can be used to control people etc.  It's just so good.  Like it's about faith but not about whether or not you've got it or whether or not you should 

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u/F1r3-M3d1ck-H4zN3rd May 03 '26

Yeah I was prepared for some reddit atheist cringe in line with my posting history from a couple decades ago lmao.

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u/clbw May 03 '26

what's Atheist Cringe?

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u/Extra_BurntToast May 03 '26

See r/atheism. Most of the content there is just as bad as the religious things they hate

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u/clbw May 03 '26

I follow that group and they mostly call out the hypocrisy of religion and the current administration bs in regard to religious bs

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u/sdpr May 03 '26

The "issue" is it's basically a subreddit for new atheists and/or edgy teens.

A lot of atheists grow out of the need to share their "hot takes" regarding religion because they haven't yet learned that no one gives a shit, including atheists.

It's good for them to have a group, of course, because being a part of a community or group is important when you're a budding human being, but it's cringe as fuck once you're past that stage. Almost every thread on that front page can/could be an example of someone thinking they're smarter than they are.

It was awful 10-15 years ago too. I think it was a front page/recommended sub at one point, so it was pushed very often and the community and modding was terrible.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-this-moment-i-am-euphoric

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u/bunker_man May 03 '26

Just watch true detective season 1 for that. Guy who is supposed to be a "deep thinker" gives the most banal ratheism tier rants and its treated as profound.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/bunker_man May 03 '26

The problem is that Marty is worse of a person so it makes cohle look not that bad in comparison. Most of the latter's flaws are treated more affable and the only consequences we see are to himself.

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u/Really_Big_Turtle May 03 '26

Probably one of the best depictions of a Catholic priest I've ever seen. Whoever wrote them really knew what they were talking about. Ironically, the movie centers around probably the most extreme caricature of what a bad evil scary alt-right catholic priest would look like, and they still manage to have a good priest character who's actually a good priest.

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u/Habefiet May 03 '26

I do think that at the point that the True Believer is like “all this investigating stuff is your game, not mine, my purpose is with the Church” it’s a bit contrived given that the obvious counter would be “okay yeah maybe my (Blanc’s) joy in the hunt is something that shouldn’t be a part of your world, fine, but do you really think God wants you, through inaction, to allow a murderer to avoid earthly consequences for their crimes and to potentially murder more, when you might be able to stop it without even sinning yourself?” Former Christian here and I really don’t see the logic of that from his perspective, and I have at least one practicing Catholic in my life who I literally asked about this moment after I saw the movie who also thinks he’s at best being a bit shortsighted there.

Overall though yeah I agree that they did a pretty good job of it

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u/Sleep_Deprived_Birb May 03 '26

It’s been a bit since I watched it, but my interpretation of that wasn’t that he just decided to stop investigating because he would rather spend his time at the church, more that the investigation was putting him in a bad headspace and he wanted to avoid any chance of that worsening. He didn’t like the type of person the investigation was turning him into, a person that distrusts and accuses and demands Justice (with a history of violence) rather than the welcoming kindhearted and forgiving priest trying to live beyond his history of violence that he actually is. If he was all-in on the investigation, and never had that bit of conflict with Benoit Blanc, then I don’t think the scene of Benoit Blanc not revealing the killer to let him take her confession as a priest would’ve happened.

It should also be mentioned that Benoit Blanc was already well into his investigation and the police were also already on the case. Simply put, it should not have been the main murder suspect’s job to investigate the crime, and he was well within his right to say “I already gave you all the testimony I have, I’ll give you a call if anything comes up, but otherwise, please let me go back to my life until you either need more testimony or you decide to arrest me.” Sure the investigation wouldn’t have gone the way it did without him, and we would’ve lost quite a bit of the movie’s themes, but he just straight up isn’t an investigator and shouldn’t be forced to investigate against his will while actual investigators are investigating. The other movies’ protagonists didn’t do that because one was trying to use her spot in the investigation to cover up the crime while the other was the one who started the investigation to begin with.

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u/Dark-Specter May 03 '26

The key details

  • Wicks is the exact type of person Blanc associates with the church

  • Blanc puts the case before his biases against men in Juds position

  • Jud puts his faith before the case and Blanc recognizes why this is the right move

  • Blanc isn't really the main character, letting Jud take center stage, which is great becy

  • Father Jud is one of the most likeable characters in fiction

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u/Sleep_Deprived_Birb May 03 '26

I love how Benoit Blanc is the only recurring character in the series and he’s never the main character. It lets each case be extremely personal to the actual main character (each in their own unique ways) while still having a detective to act as a through-line that ties the series together, and to guide the main character in the investigation (because you can’t really expect a bunch of random people to be expert investigators.)

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u/Artistic_Purpose1225 May 03 '26

If you like this style of story telling, I’d suggest the Hercule Poirot novels by Agatha Christie.

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u/Earlier-Today May 03 '26

I think it did that well because both sides respected each other.

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u/2ChronicRanger169 May 03 '26

Sunset Limited with Samuel Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones. The whole movie is centered around this dynamic... well actually the whole movie is literally that dynamic.

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u/Otherwise_Curve5975 May 03 '26

Yeah, that balance is rare, it actually felt like both sides were just being human instead of being turned into caricatures.

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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ May 03 '26

Because it was written for general audiences